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It’s Been a Year…Time for a Little Reflection

It’s time to get a little personal, which is something I don’t do very often on this blog. If you have ever lost someone very close to you, maybe you can relate.

It has been one year (Aug 3) since my mom died. It has been a wild one but a challenging one as well. Not just the challenge of learning how to grieve, or move forward but learning how to grow from this situation and try to turn some of the negatives into positives.

Looking back at this past year, it’s remarkable I was even able to do anything at all, considering in the first three weeks since the event took place, I didn’t even want to feed myself.

I was able to get back into a normal routine and I think being able to focus on work again really helped me put things into perspective. I can’t say I was too productive at work though, because my mind was thinking about a million things…what to do with my mom’s house, where will my sister and I live? Can I afford a mortgage or a downpayment?

Despite all the worry in my head, I tried not to get caught up in all the grown up stuff I had to take care of and made it a priority to have fun, see friends, treat myself to getting my nails done and the general stuff that would make me happy and distract me from all the negative emotions I had.

If I also did not have the support of my boyfriend I may have probably had a much tougher time coping.

I feel I accomplished a lot this year. I was still able to host another WordCamp Toronto, change jobs – which is somewhat of a scary prospect in challenging times and I was able to put on a charity fundraising event in honour of my mom, now an annual event called The Gratitude Tea.

The best thing I’ve learned from this year is that friends are really important. They will cheer you up when you’re feeling down, take you out for dinner to distract you and remind you that everything will be okay. More importantly, life will go on.

I am my mom’s legacy and I know she would be proud knowing my sister and I picked ourselves up after tragedy and continued to look forward. She was a self-made woman and I try to live by her example everyday.

Here’s a video treat I put together for people who knew my mom. It was taken at my sister’s graduation in the spring of 2009. You can hear in the video that my sister is telling me to put the camera away but I’m glad I didn’t listen. It’s the only video I have of her in recent history.